Happy New Year 2025! I decided to post my first blog post of the year on the 14th Anniversary of Taking it One 'Stef' at a Time! Huhhh??? How about that?? I haven't done that in a long time! lol
I was contemplating what my 2024 round up blog post(s) should be about. Movie theater visits? Book reviews? Life experiences?
But as a general theme here, I think I want to talk about how 2024 was a year I found myself exposed to and exploring genres I never would have paid attention to before. Most of this is thanks to Austin Butler.
*GASP* Is anyone surprised???
This will be a three-part series because I can't fit everything into one blog post. I'm aiming to keep them more concise. I was going to make it all one post, but this is better. Less lengthy. lol
I'll start with books. I recently visited my Goodreads profile to log in a book that I have finally finished when I saw that, according to my Reading Challenge of 2024, I had only completed a total of four books this year, and three of them is the Stephanie Garber Caraval trilogy.
This one doesn't involve Austin though, okay? Just be patient. LOL
Right off the bat this is different for me because I don't normally read fantasy, although I do read young adult. What got me interested in Garber's work was not this series but her Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy. This one had just come to an end and I saw that the final book was for sale at Barnes & Noble. Intrigued, I decided that I wanted to read the series, but then saw that she wrote the Caraval series prior. Both trilogies take place in the same universe and there is a debate which one should be read before the other.
I decided to read Caraval first simply because I found the plot more interesting. It follows the story of sisters Scarlett and Donatella "Tella" Dragna who get invited to the world of Caraval, a magical place where people compete for prizes and it is difficult to determine what is real and what is not, by the mysterious Legend who runs the entire operation. From there they discover romance and the truth about themselves, their family, Legend, and what really lies behind Caraval.
I don't want to give away too much because frankly it is very detailed and it has been awhile since I read them. lol The first book is the best to me because it is the most mysterious and makes you want to know more. More is revealed in the second and third books, Legendary and Finale, but some of the revelations for me aren't that great. For example, we finally find out the true identity of a character and it was very lackluster for me. I was like, "Really? That's who they are?" I thought that it would have been more interesting if they were someone else.
By the time I got to Finale, I was kinda over it. I almost didn't care to read it but I did want to finish the story and wrap up my relationship with Scarlett and Tella. What Garber reveals explains a lot of what is going on, so I can't really fault it too much, but it also felt like Garber was doing too much with the series, as if there was so much she wanted to include and so she tried to fit everything in.
But all in all, I enjoyed this trilogy. Garber has a great imagination. She knows this world inside and out and describes it thoroughly. Like true fantasy book fashion, each book comes with a map as well, and I was looking forward to learning more about each location. I picked each copy up at the library one after the other as soon as I finished the prior installment, so that says something. I'm just glad that I got into this series way after the books were all published so I didn't have to wait for the next one. lol
I would recommend reading the Caraval series before the Once Upon... one though because it introduces you to Garber's writing style and this world and its rules that she has created as well as a character who is critical in Once Upon, so I think it would be best to know some of this background before going into it. Once Upon is still a trilogy that I am looking to read in the future, but I need a little break in the interim from Garber's Caraval universe. lol
The fourth book I read and had been working on since July and finally finished before 2024 came to a close, thus earning me the Sapphire Reader achievement on Goodreads, is Charlie Huston's Caught Stealing. I'm grateful that my local library has this book because evidently a physical copy is hard to come by. This is a crime thriller, another genre that I don't often read, but this one is not young adult. Expect loads of vulgarity. lol
Austin Butler (Yes, this is where he comes in LOL) stars in the upcoming movie adaptation of this book directed by Darren Aronofsky, and that is the ONLY reason why I know about and read this book and, now that I finished it, it's the only reason why I care about it. It is about a former baseball player turned bartender named Hank Thompson whose neighbor Russ asks him to to watch his cat Bud. As a result, Hank ends up on the run from the police and criminals alike because of something hidden in the cat's carrying case.
A positive of the book is that I like Huston's writing style and how he forms Hank's stream of consciousness and narration. There is a dark, sarcastic sense of humor Huston wields for this book that makes it enjoyable to read. He makes you care about Hank and want to know what is going on and what is going to happen to him. It is actually a short book and a quick read because of this. I was surprised when I first saw it because I expected it to be thicker. You would think I would have finished it sooner.
But that is where the positives end. I did not like this book much because it is a bit way too violent and negative for my taste. I know as an author you are supposed to make your protagonist suffer, and in doing so this evokes empathy from the reader, but Hank's entire existence before and during the book follows the themes of "If something can go wrong, it will" and "Can this get any worse?" and it does. It gives this impression that because Hank is a nice guy who is always willing to help others, he gets screwed, so the message is that you might as well not be a good person in order to avoid problems. I don't go for that.
The only saving grace is that Hank has a loving relationship with his parents. Usually characters who are down on their luck like he is have had bad upbringings and resent their parents, but he doesn't. He actually had a nice childhood and still loves his parents to this day, and his love for his parents is another concern because he needs to protect them from the danger he inadvertently gets himself into.
Hank is a man who both has nothing to lose but then ends up losing everything. The guy can't catch a break at all and he really doesn't deserve anything that gets thrown at him. It made me not want to read further because even though I wanted to know what happens and be prepared for the movie, I was put off by how dire everything feels at all times for him. If there was more indication that Hank could possibly overcome this, maybe I would be more on board with it. But a lot of it is that he is alone in this, he can't trust anyone entirely, and there is no hope for him.
All Hank wanted to do is play baseball. In fact, throughout the book he keeps himself updated with the current game scores and that is the only thing in his life that brings him joy. Well, not really, because there is a reason why he wasn't able to pursue baseball professionally, and that's what starts his bad luck in the first place...
I kind of want to see where Hank's story goes, because this is a trilogy as well, but unlike Caraval, I don't think I can get into reading the next books just yet unless they decide to make film adaptations of them too and Austin stars again. The most fun I had with this book is talking about it with fellow Austin Butler fans on Twitter and seeing the behind the scenes content of Austin and others filming the movie and guessing which scene they were working on that day. I had even applied on Backstage to be an extra, so that was a different experience lol. I never heard back from them. lol I think maybe I applied too late or something. Or, you know, I didn't meet the requirements. Or most likely they didn't even see my application anyway. lol
From what we gather, Huston has made plenty of changes for the film. For instance, the lead male antagonist is now played by a woman, two black cowboys are now Hasidic Jews, Hank's love interest Yvonne has more of a presence, and a Chinese guy is now played by Bad Bunny (from what we're surmising)... Soooo, yeah. It should be interesting to see the final product and how much it matches the original book. I don't know how loyal of an adaptation it will be as a result, but because the author is involved with the screenplay, I'll trust it. That's usually a good sign. It's actually a pretty cool opportunity for an author to revisit his published work 20+ years later and explore his creativity with it again.
So, not a huge fan of the book. I don't hate it, but it's not up there as a favorite for me right now. I'm just here for Austin and I am excited for the movie. :)
Speaking of movies, stayed tuned to my Movie 2024 Wrap-Ups.
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